Gender and race causing moral panic in music videos...

Mylie Cyrus Vs Sinaed O'Connor

In this essay, i will be assessing the representation of women through the comparison of two different music videos.Firstly 'Wreaking Ball' by Mylie Cyrus which came out this year and secondly 'Nothing compares to you' By Sinead O'Connor which was released in 1990.

The music video 'Wreaking Ball' starts with a close up of Mylie Cyrus's face.Her bright red lipstick signify her femininity. In contrast with her facial features and blue eyes which we usually associate with 'ideal women'. For example we expect to see a women look like this. Cyrus's complexion and the white back round could signify her purity as the color white usually symbolizes something that is pure. This makes her look attractive and compels the male audiences gaze.
                    Adding to this as Cyrus is directly looking/lip syncing into the camera, this develops a relationship between the audience and the artist.Therefore the music video feels a bit more personal to the audience and they can understand the artist better.

However through out the music video Cyrus is representing her self in a sexual way.For example her costume and her body language connotes her sexual desires. Due to this music video most people now have a new perpective on Cyrus.Some see this as a great change from when she used to be on Disney channel. Others despite it because of her young fans and how this behavior could influence the younger generation,Clearly we can see this was done in the intention of publicly.

The music video 'Nothing compares to you' by Sinaed O'Connor was first shown in the 1990's. At this time womens are represented differently as we can tell when comparing 'wreaking ball' to this music video. 'Nothing comapares to you' is made up of the same concept where O'Connor is directly lip syncing the lyrics to the camera.Whereas in the music video 'Wreaking Ball' we see Cyrus using different props such as a hammer to present her self to the audience. we only see one shot of her where she is directly singing to the audience.

The mise en scene such as the colors and back round, we can easily point out that Sinead O'Connor's music video is much dull than Cyrus, because of the dark colors used for example the pitch black back round and costume.Though out this music video O'Connor is fully dressed, not showing much of her skin. Society see this as self respect as she is not trying to be the center of attention for men.

In both music videos womens are represented different,where one shows women seeking sexual desires,the other shows women as being pure and respectful, This could be because of the different times. For example we see womens differently than we did in the 90's. Universe is much diverse and women have more rights and freedom than they did before.We can connote Cyrus being naked on a wreaking ball could symbolize her freedom and that she does not care what others think.

Due to the similar shots, we can tell Cyrus is inspired by O'Connor however Mylie Cyrus's audience is mostly 12-19 year old girls. O'Connor responds that Cyrus should not be allowed to exploit her self in the music industry, as the younger generation could can get influenced....However it shows the truth and provides prove from many theories which states that the industry exploits women to help them become more popular. Other artists such as Rihanna and Lady GaGa provide this evidence.

Magazine adverts-Layout

While browsing on NME's website, we came across a few adverts from different magazines. We liked some of the layouts which we can imply to our music advert. The layout above doesn't contain a lot of writing,this grabs the audiences attention because huge picture of the band. we can tell the men in foreground is the protagonist as he is standing out more than the others in the back round. Due to this picture the fans can recognise the band easily.

In this advert, the layout of the page causal than the other adverts. It is like a dairy as there is a picture of the pen on the side with some photographs. It looks like a dairy where someone records their memories.Our music video is based on the concept of 'memories' the idea of having photographs as a layout maybe a good idea because it fits with our theme. 

We would not like to use the layout above,as there isn't much information on band or music. The whole advert revolves around the band,because its the only main thing you see apart from the quote "In a Neverland kinda of way we haven't had to grow up yet..."

         

The quarter of the page covers the writing such as the heading and subtitle. "we're writing two new albums" is a very catchy because it makes the audience want to know what the two albums are. It's short but effective. We can use this technique in our music advert for 'the summer war'. 

Artist Research

The summer war is a band that consists of  three male members;
Tom Farr - Bass
Dave Ciaramella - Guitar
Jack Nolan - Drums
Influences:Lady GaGa, Avril Lavigne, The Olsen Twins

The music genre they use is alternative rock. By exploring their Facebook page and YouTube channel  i found out that the band does not make much of their own  music videos.Their YouTube channel only contains three proper music videos, two of which are lyrical. The band tends to make a performance based video.
Or lyrical as it is much easier, and cheaper.


As we don't have the right equipment to make a performance based video that will fit in with the other videos the band have made.We decided to make narrative based video that will have a little lip syncing.
While browsing on the internet, i realized that band makes a lot of music (audio) and not a music video for it.

http://www.reverbnation.com/thesummerwar

Analysis 'Discovery' and Pitch.

The summer war have made an official lyrical music video. However we decided to make a narrative music video for their original song 'Discovery'. From the lyrics of their song, it seems like the song is about a group of friends who haven't seen each other in a long time 'i keep dreaming about all the friends that i don't see'. They are talking about how they use to have such a great time together 'It's been a while since we've dressed up for the night'. As the song is mentions the past 'Sixteen,looks like so much fun' we can concluded that the singer has 'discovered' their self, and who they want to be.

 

Our Pitch:
We decided that our music video will be narrative based. The music video will start with a young girl, who is about 17-19. she is going to be sitting in a room next to the window, with headphones in her ears and a picture of her friends in her hand. As she plays the song on her iPod the music begins, it's as if the audience will be listening to the music with her, therefore they can relate more.The camera then zooms into the picture, and the flash back starts. Where the girls are getting all dressed up in their room for a night out. We also want to shoot some shots on the road with lots of bright lighting's, to give our video wild atmosphere. We have thought of various locations; such as a busy road, a bed room, and high street. However this is not our final idea, we would like to add on to this and develop it for the better. At the end of our music video we decided the girls will meet again, although they will not talk to each other.

Pitch Protection

My pitch for the music video 'Protection' by Massive Attack. 

My pitch is about a little girl, who is about seven years old...she is depressed, feels lonely and unwanted,as she's an victim of child abuse. The location i want to use is a dark bedroom and small park with a lake, as i want to create a dull environment. My music video will be based on both Narrative and Performance.The performance is going to be a solo of a women singer in a white dress. Like an 'Angel' The singer is a ghost that the little girl can not see. However the little girl is the childhood of the singer, and though this song she is telling her self that she is her own guardian angel. The dress symbolize this...

  The narrative is basically about singer telling her childhood self that she will protect her,as she has done it before 'I have leaned on me for years, now you can lean on me'. The singer and her childhood self then see each other at the end of the music video,never the less instead of saying something they walk right past each other without a word. As if they they know each other but do not recognize because they are two very different people now.
         
I can compare my pitch to Avril Lavigne's music video 'smile' where she walks around picking up glass, and people around her could not see her. 
But 'smile' when she picks the broken glass pieces. 

Protection

                             

The  music video 'Protection' appeared in 1994.This was when sets for music videos were self created and designed in real life, as there were no green screening at time. Despite this,Massive Attack were able create an illusion and fool the audience into thinking the building in the music video is real.
we're not able to tell that the building created is horizontal,and the camera is moving along.
As the camera is moving along at all times, we can tell that the video was filmed in a continuous shot.
This video contains both performance and concept.Also most of their music is either alternative hip pop,or experimental rock.

The little girl shown at the beginning of the music video is the protagonist, as she is shown various times in this video.This is a very unique video, therefore it is very difficult to compare this to any other videos.The mise en scene in this video shows a combination of both dull and bright colors.We see many different age groups, we see an elder lady in a wheelchair with lots of locks on her door. This denotes 'fear' and the need of protection which is the title of the song.We also see the protagonist afraid and abused... also seeking for protection.

Most of Massive Attack's music videos are based on editing for example; in the music video below... Editing is used in order to create the effects in this video,therefore i can conclude that editing plays the most important part in their work.Similar to the music video 'Protection' this music video contains performance and concept.